YMMV / What If…? (2021)

Episode pages

Season 1

1. "Episode 1: "What If... Captain Carter Were The First Avenger?"
2. Episode 2: "What If... T'Challa Became a Star-Lord?"
3. Episode 3: "What If... The World Lost Its Mightiest Heroes?"
4. Episode 4: "What If... Doctor Strange Lost His Heart Instead of His Hands?"
5. Episode 5: "What If... Zombies?!"
6. Episode 6: "What If... Killmonger Rescued Tony Stark?"
7. Episode 7: "What If... Thor Were an Only Child?"
8. Episode 8: "What If... Ultron Won?"
9. Episode 9: "What If... The Watcher Broke His Oath?"

Season 2

1. Episode 2: "What If... Peter Quill Attacked Earth's Mightiest Heroes?"
2. Episode 4: "What If... Iron Man Crashed Into the Grandmaster?"
3. Episode 5: "What If... Captain Carter Fought the HYDRA Stomper?"
4. Episode 6: "What If... Kahhori Reshaped the World?"
5. Episode 7: "What If... Hela Found the Ten Rings?"

Series-wide entries

• Adorkable:
  • Captain Carter acts positively giddy as she tests out her new abilities.
  • Bucky is also a lot more cheerful in the Captain Carter timeline due to never becoming the Winter Soldier.
  • Korath fanboying over T'Challa in the second episode pretty much makes him this.
  • Thanos of all people also gets this, too. Between his interactions with Nebula and the other Ravagers, it's safe to say that he's mellowed out considerably in this timeline thanks to T'Challa.
  • Phil Coulson talking about Thor's really great hair and his computer password.
  • Happy saying "Blam!" whenever he fires off Tony's repulsor. He even continues to do this once he's been zombified.
  • Jane Foster becomes this with her crush on Party Thor and their subsequent flirting like high schoolers throughout Episode 7.
  • Strange Supreme, despite being a much darker take on the character, slips into some social awkwardness of his own as he attempts to give a Rousing Speech to the Guardians of the Multiverse, and completely and utterly botches it. Thankfully T'Challa bails him out pretty quickly, though not quite quickly enough to pick up all of the pieces of his dignity…
  • Xu Wenwu, despite being a fearsome conqueror and warlord, falls head over heels for Hela, Goddess of Death. It starts with him trying to woo her to his cause, then putting her into a robe that doubles as a wedding dress, before culminating in him trying to kiss her. It fails spectacularly as she smashes his head into a table and escapes...not that that deters him in the slightest. He eventually gets his moment with her when they do battle against Odin.
• Alternative Character Interpretation:
  • Bucky's exclamation of "I should be sad, but I'm not" in Episode 5 after Okoye dispatches a zombified Sam right in front of him. A tongue-in-cheek Mythology Gag to their Vitriolic Best Buds relationship in better circumstances, or an admission of being so shell-shocked that even the deaths of beloved comrades no longer fazes him?
  • In "What If… The Watcher Broke His Oath?", the zombified Wanda from "What If… Zombies?!" is summoned to slow down Infinity Ultron if not outright destroy him. She gets a shocked/dismayed expression after Ultron No Sells her attack — is she suddenly afraid because he resisted her full power, or is it because she realized that this Ultron has Vision's body and is surprised to see her boyfriend "back"?
• Awesome Art: The series boasts Cel Shaded 3DCG animation courtesy of Squeeze Studios, which is rather stunning and very pleasing to look at. Episode 4 has also been praised for its absolutely gorgeous 2D animation mixed in with 3D, most apparent when Strange Supreme starts absorbing otherworldly beings. The entire sequence is truly captivating.
• Badass Decay:
  • The Thanos variant in Episode 2 is merely a normal, strong alien with no army, thanks to Star-Lord's arguments talking him out of his genocidal crusade. Furthermore, his minions in another timeline Proxima Midnight and Cull Obsidian double-team him rather easily — though he took a fair beating, he's still relatively uninjured after the fact however. The Thanos in Episode 8 is even worse in this regard. Despite possessing 5 Infinity Stones, he gets effortlessly killed by Ultron without even having the chance to throw a punch.
  • Iron Man, compared to his Sacred Timeline self. As of Episode 8, he has died in every episode he's appeared in, with the only exception being Episode 9, whether in or out of his Iron Man armor.
  • In the Season 1 finale, Loki is knocked down by a kick from Black Widow, when under normal circumstances he shouldn't even have felt it.
• Broken Base:
  • Fans are split on how they feel about the Marvel Zombies-centric episode. Some think it's a genuinely cool and scary episode that’s a nice Affectionate Parody of traditional Zombie Apocalypse tropes in a superhero setting, while others think it's by far the worst episode of the series due to the clashing comedic and horror tones with a nonsensical Cruel Twist Ending. The fact that Marvel later announced an entire sequel series centered around the events of that universe only split people further.
  • The large amount of Series Continuity Errors and Continuity Snarls present throughout the what-if scenarios have proven divisive to viewers. Some consider them harmless and able to be explained under the differences in the multiverse, or are fine viewing the stories under Broad Strokes. Detractors however feel it causes weaker writing and feels that if various continuity errors and Ass Pulls are needed to get the desired What-If scenario (Thanos managing to get 5/6 Infinity Stones in Episode 8 considered the biggest offender) then it's a poor concept for an episode.
• Catharsis Factor:
  • As opposed to being atomized by the Power Stone in the original timeline to escape captivity, Carina finally gets one over Tivan here by locking him up in a cage while freeing the rest of his "collection" to do with him as they will.
    • All-round, for some viewers it can be rather gratifying to see that for many GotG characters who went through a lot of Woobie levels of suffering and/or didn't meet entirely happy endings in the Sacred Timeline (Carina, Drax, Yondu, Nebula, even Thanos), Star-Lord T'Challa's universe seems to be a place where the multiverse just cuts them some trans-dimensional slack by letting them lead uninterrupted happy lives.
  • After he showed himself to be one of the (if not the) evilest villains in the entire MCU by destroying his own universe and attempting to do the same to the entire multiverse, it's quite satisfying to see Infinity Ultron get smacked around by the Guardians of the Multiverse and be completely assimilated (and technically killed) by Arnim Zola, of all people.
  • In the Season 1 finale, not only does Black Widow get to survive a gigantic battle against a Multiversal Conquerer, she plays a key role in the team's victory, and then even gets to leave her own destroyed universe for the one where the OG Avengers were all killed, taking her Variant's place.
• Complete Monster: See here.
• Creepy Awesome:
  • Uatu himself can give off this vibe, having a very large head, and being an observer of the universe without anyone knowing. Even Infinity Ultron accuses him of being "creepy" for looking at the lives of strangers for entertainment. However, his voice and narration are pretty awesome, and he manages to put up a fight against Infinity Ultron, summoning gold armor for the occasion.
  • The Collector from Episode 2. He's a nightmarish slaver and a murderous bastard for sure, but it's hard to deny he's far more dangerous than his film counterpart, and the flamboyant yet disturbing performance by Benicio del Toro sells him as someone to be feared.
  • Episode 3 gives us the evil Hank Pym, who uses the Ant-Man suit to kill most of the Avengers with impunity. It's impossible not to admire the tactical thinking on display, while at the same time they're horrifying to watch in action, pulling off maneuvers that would be easy to cheer on if it weren't the heroes on the receiving end. The haggard, unhinged performance of Michael Douglas only adds to this.
  • Episode 4 gives us one of the saddest and most disturbing characters in the whole franchise in the form of Strange Supreme. Already creepy by virtue of being an evil Doctor Strange, Strange Supreme goes further by murdering and absorbing countless magical beings and becoming a Humanoid Abomination in the process, wielding a repertoire of dark and disturbing magic that not even Dormammu's followers could grasp, and having a terrifying true form, with tendrils, countless eyes, and a shifting shadow. It definitely helps that he's quite pitiable as well. In Episode 8, Uatu asks for his help to defeat Infinity Ultron, which further shows how powerful he is if Uatu believes he has a chance..
  • Episode 5 has quite a few MCU heroes becoming zombies, retaining all their powers and fighting skills but now getting to cut loose without a shred of morality and the sole goal of eating the living. The one that really takes the cake is Wanda Maximoff, with the unfathomable power that nearly took care of Thanos singlehandedly now turned against the few remaining heroes.
  • Episode 8 has Infinity Ultron, the same omnicidal robot in the superior body of Vision with all 6 infinity stones. Not only is he powerful enough to wreck the entire universe, he like Strange Supreme, manages to detect the Watcher, and then breaks out of his reality to fight him, with each punch sending them to another reality.
  • Also in Episode 8 there is the return of Arnim Zola, or at least a digital copy of the HYDRA mad scientist's consciousness stored in an old analog computer, and later uploaded to an Ultron drone that Natasha shoots the legs off of. He still has calm polite mannerism despite who he is and is entrusted to destroy the Ultron Hivemind (and only fails due to Ultron being outside the universe). In the next episode, he succeeds in overwriting Ultron, giving him a Pre-Mortem One-Liner.
• Crosses the Line Twice:
  • "Guys, I'm covered in Sharon!" Yes, you just read that right. Hope essentially killed a zombified Sharon via shrinking herself to get inside of her, and then promptly returning to normal size, tearing her to pieces in the process. Oyoke responding that Peter has hand sanitizer is icing on the cake.
  • Thor destroyed a planet he visited? Not funny. Thor destroyed a planet by partying on it? Kind of funny. Thor destroyed a planet that was actually a giant unstable asteroid because it was going to blow up anyway by partying and ensure that everyone survived including a goat? Hilarious.
• Ensemble Dark Horse: The moment news of Kahhori — a Native American super-heroine made whole-cloth for the series — went public, fans immediately fell in love with her, an affection that only grew when her premier episode aired.
• Epileptic Trees:
  • The Loki variant seen in Season 1's third episode is speculated by a few to be the President Loki variant also seen in the aforementioned show. This is due to the Loki seen here managing to take control over the entirety of Earth by the episode's end, as well as having the same low, growly voice that differentiates him from other Lokis.
  • Before the release of Season 1's fifth episode, fans speculated that the Spider-Man variant wearing the Cloak of Levitation in teasers was the Sorcerer Supreme of his timeline, or at least a powerful sorcerer.
  • Also in Season 1, Episode 8 has Black Widow and Hawkeye discovering and reactivating a copy of Arnim Zola's mind that they find within the KGB's headquarters. With the reveal that there are multiple copies of Zola's mind out there, some believe this is subtle foreshadowing for the character's return in the mainline MCU movies.
• Esoteric Happy Ending: While at first seeming to be an example of Earn Your Happy Ending and is clearly intended as such, the fate of Black Widow in Infinity Ultron's timeline can come across as this. We're supposed to feel happy for her that she's no longer in a post-apocalyptic wasteland where she's the last survivor, but that doesn't change the fact that this timeline's Clint Barton, Bruce Banner, Tony Stark and Thor Odinson, friends she's spent years fighting alongside, are still dead and buried. Not only that, but this Steve Rogers has never met her and has no memories of her, meaning that the relationships she had with her team are gone, though she at least has a chance of rebuilding her friendship with Steve and finding new allies like Captain Marvel.
• Evil Is Cool: But of course! With different timelines come different villains, and many of those villains prove just as cool as the main MCU's antagonists.
  • The second episode gives us an amped-up version of the Collector, who in lieu of the other space-centered villains has become a cosmic crime boss. He also brings the fight to the heroes without hesitation, wielding artifacts and weapons from across the films' history.
  • The third episode gives us the evil Hank Pym, who's become Yellowjacket. After losing his daughter, Hank decided to settle the score with Fury. What ensues is Pym showing exactly what the powers of the Ant-Man suit can do; killing every single original Avenger (Minus Captain America) under S.H.I.E.L.D.'s nose, including the Incredible Hulk in a creative and horrifically effective manner.
  • The third episode gained a fair bit of praise for the complete lack of incompetence on Loki's part. He shows up, immediately decimates a good number of Fury's troops, helps Fury when it's convenient, even delivering a Curb-Stomp Battle to Hank Pym, and wastes no time in effortlessly conquering Earth once it's convenient. It was generally considered a welcome return to his Avengers-era characterization.
  • While his reason for existing is heartbreaking and the end result is horrifying, there's no denying that Strange Supreme, a version of Strange who went all out and abandoned obeying laws in favor of getting power, is a cool concept on its own. It doesn't hurt that the episode centered around him was widely praised.
  • The zombified Avengers were generally well-received for their terrifying designs, the fact they keep their skills from life, and just the general fandom joy of seeing Marvel Zombies brought to the screen. This only increases as the episode goes on, as it gives us Zombie Scarlet Witch, who has an utterly metal design and receives some unexpected humanization and peaks at the episode's end, which gives us Zombie Thanos, standing above the horde in Wakanda with five Infinity Stones at the ready.
  • The sixth episode features Erik "Killmonger" Stevens turning Wakanda and the US against each other, while convincing Tony Stark and most of the Wakandan royal family that he's to be trusted. Playing both sides in this conflict with ease — while looking dashing in a white dress uniform — he's easily one of the most manipulative and charming antagonists in this show, and perhaps the MCU as a whole.
  • Introduced at the end of the seventh episode, before making his full appearance in the eight episode, Infinity Ultron. An Ultron that won against the Avengers, before one-shotting Thanos, claiming all the Infinity Stones and going down his comic book counterpart's route of killing every form of life in the Universe, before setting his sights on the entire multiverse, but not before an epic fight with the Watcher himself. And he also has a design that's closer to his comic book counterpart's jack-o-lantern face.
  • Season 2's second episode has Ego the living planet, who is depicted awesomely after last season had him easily beaten over and over again. Kurt Russell depicts Ego as charmingly Faux Affably Evil, with a dangerous vile side and a very cool powerset in being able to replicate himself.
  • Season 2's third episode gives us Justin Hammer, who's depicted as way more competent than his debut in Iron Man 2. He's a Beware the Silly Ones Diabolical Mastermind who spends the entire episode having fun while throwing the heroes for loops.
  • Season 2's fourth episode has Jeff Goldblum return as Grandmaster and manage to be just as charming, sly and funny. The Grandmaster is noted to be a joy for audiences to watch.
• Fanfic Fuel: But of course; the series has brought out many ideas and questions that are just begging to be answered through fanfics since we only get at least half an hour to explore the settings of each episode. Episode 2 brings up questions like where are Gamora, Rocket and Groot or the possibilities of Peter Quill becoming evil and allied with Ego. In the latter case, the Watcher even states the outcome of Peter's encounter with Ego is Another Story for Another Time. In fact, there were actually talks about a spin-off show based on T'Challa Star-Lord before it had to be scrapped due to Chadwick Boseman's passing. What type of adventures can the fanfic writers give to this timeline?
• Friendly Fandoms:
  • Many Robot Chicken fans became interested in this show after both Seth Green and Lake Bell's involvements were confirmed in the series.
  • What If…? has a surprisingly large number of Star Wars fans who like the show, or who at least like the concept of What If? as a trope^note the saga has tried the concept out before, with a three-comic miniseries called “Infinites”, and one can see the now-Canon Discontinuity Expanded Universe, Star Wars Legends, as a What If too, at least for the blatant divergences with the canon since Disney bought the franchise. Once it began releasing episodes in August, several Star Wars fans started coming up with ideas online for a What If…? series for that franchise. The fact that A.C. Bradley wanted to have this show cross over with Star Wars early in the process also helps.
  • For the first episode specifically, the few The West Wing fans who expected Bradley Whitford to show up in the MCU certainly didn't expect him to voice an even bigger jackass than Josh Lyman.
• Genius Bonus: The realm in which Uatu resides appears to be a space between two prismatic walls that stretch on presumably forever. This could be a reference to the bulk of Brane cosmology.
• Growing the Beard: While the show was never considered to be poor quality, most people agree Episode 3 is the point where the series found its footing. Episodes 1 and 2 were both fairly standard Role Swap AU stories, while Episode 3 takes full advantage of the Elseworlds premise by killing most of the Avengers in order to tell a compelling murder mystery; and things keep getting crazier from there.
• Harsher in Hindsight:
  • In What If…Zombies?!, Peter Parker ends up losing Aunt May, Happy Hogan, Tony Stark and presumably the rest of his friends at the Midtown High School of Technology to the Zombie Apocalypse, but manages to remain an Iron Woobie due to the support of his fellow Avengers. Sacred Timeline Peter somehow manages to fare even worse than his variant here, as he not only loses Aunt May to the Green Goblin, but also loses his friends, Happy and the rest of the Avengers due to a memory-wiping spell that causes them to forget who he is.
  • In the fourth episode of Season 1, Strange Supreme spends centuries of his life to gain enough power to bring back Christine, only for it to be for naught when he destroys the entire universe by accident. As Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness would reveal, there is literally no timeline in existence where Stephen and Christine ever get/remain together, meaning that Strange Supreme's goals were doomed from the start.
  • Seeing Strange Supreme and Captain Carter hit it off with one another in this series really stings after watching Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, where the Illuminati's Captain Carter is cold and antagonistic to the Sacred Timeline Doctor Strange, believing him to be too dangerous to be left alive.
  • There being a Zombie Wanda capable of throwing down (even if only briefly) with a multiversal threat in Infinity Ultron gets cruelly flipped as well in Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, as the Sacred Timeline Wanda we've followed throughout turns out to be the Big Bad of the film (via becoming Brainwashed and Crazy), a multiversal menace responsible for curb-stomping the Illuminati in a way that manages to supersede Infinity Ultron's own battle with the Guardians of the Multiverse.
  • Yet another Multiverse of Madness example, the existence of Incursions makes the scenes of Infinity Ultron and Uatu fighting across realities, the Ultron drones invading the other realities, the Guardians of the Multiverse fighting on Infinity Ultron's Earth, and the Natasha from said Earth migrating over to King Loki's Earth more concerning.
  • The events of What If…Killmonger Rescued Tony Stark? centering around Wakanda going to war with a foreign nation in the wake of T'Challa's death becomes significantly more heartbreaking to watch after Black Panther: Wakanda Forever would have something very similar happen, albeit with Talokan being the aggressors instead of the United States.
• He Really Can Act:
  • After previously portraying the character in a Robot Chicken sketch, Lake Bell shows she can do a strong job playing Black Widow seriously here. During the events of the third episode, she nails Natasha's stoic Consummate Professional personality from the Sacred Timeline, while being able to give her some vulnerability, particularly when Clint is revealed to have been killed.
  • While Benedict Cumberbatch had portrayed Doctor Strange well in previous MCU projects, his performance in What If…Doctor Strange Lost His Heart Instead of His Hands? allows him to tap into a range of emotions that really made viewers feel invested in Strange Supreme. His genuine desperation to save Christine and his subsequent fall into madness can be heard in his voice throughout the entire episode, and his cries of anguish and regret at the end made people truly feel for the poor doctor. Considering most of the MCU actors don't do much voice work (many thought Sebastian Stan in particular phoned in his lines in the first episode), Cumberbatch gave a surprisingly moving performance.
  • After spending time as a formidable but distant Character Narrator in the first three stories, Jeffrey Wright really brings out the human side of Uatu the Watcher by showing genuine worry about Strange Supreme's actions in the fourth episode, but sticking to his strict Alien Non-Interference Clause and harshly denouncing Stephen's actions before leaving him to his Fate Worse than Death by the end of the episode.
  • While Ross Marquand was already considered to be a great replacement for Hugo Weaving’s Red Skull (a role he reprised in this show), he also gets the chance to play a completely different character in Infinity Ultron. He perfectly captures the megalomania and power that is Ultron (even if he sounds almost nothing like James Spader)^note Which, as noted below, was intentional, as he was told to combine Spader's voice for Ultron with Paul Bettany's voice for Vision..
• Hilarious in Hindsight: During the events of What If...Zombies?!, Scott is shown to have been reduced to a head in a jar (using the Cloak of Levitation to float around), and constantly makes head puns to deal with his newfound existence. Fast-forward to Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, and Scott ends up encountering his old enemy Darren Cross, who has been deformed into being a massive floating head himself.
• I Knew It!: Theories were made speculating the importance of the Watcher's appearance in the background of the series. Each episode had him appearing more visible than the last, going from an abstract cosmic appearance to a colorful humanoid look. A.C. Bradley confirmed that this was an intentional clue into the Watcher becoming more involved in the stories he's witnessing, bordering on whether or not he feels the need to intervene.
• Iron Woobie:
  • Peter Parker in Episode 5 has lost almost everyone he cared about to the Zombie Apocalypse, including Aunt May. Over the course of the episode, he finds himself leading a Dwindling Party. However, he still maintains his sense of humor, leaving Hope surprised.
  • Scott Lang also fits in Episode 5. After trying to rescue Janet van Dyne during his timeline's version of Ant-Man and the Wasp, he's forcibly transformed in a zombie, and is only cured by having his disembodied head placed in a jar. And yet, he's just as upbeat and jokey as Spider-Man is, only briefly losing his composure when he sees a giant zombified Hope trying to kill them.
• It's Short, So It Sucks!: While each of the alternate realities covered in the show were highly praised, most fans agree that the episode lengths for each one are far too short to really expand upon them in full, with most of them lasting little more than thirty minutes at most. It doesn’t help that the movies that the episodes spin off of are often one and a half hours at the least, meaning the compression of time is really felt in each episode. This is mostly averted with Episode 4 however, which most agree balanced its limited time and pacing well. The fact that the episode ends with the entire universe ending also means that there wasn't much to go from there.
• It's the Same, Now It Sucks!: A lot of criticism towards Captain Carter is of how, compared to the other altered heroes, very little about her timeline changes, essentially being a repeat of the various Captain America films with a Gender Flip and not leaning into the potential to have larger and more interesting divergences.
• Jerkass Woobie:
  • Hank Pym. Assuming the events of the flashback in Ant-Man played out as they did in the Sacred Timeline, Hank not only lost his wife, but also his daughter as well. Having taken up the mantle of Yellowjacket, he enacts his revenge against S.H.I.E.L.D. by personally cutting down (almost) all of the candidates of the Avenger Initiative, including Thor and the Hulk.
  • Doctor Strange Supreme. After losing Christine in that fateful car accident, Strange becomes consumed by the notion of trying to prevent her death to the point where he is willing to absorb the essence of other beings to become powerful enough to save her at the cost of the entire universe and its people. Even after he succeeds, the universe is destroyed anyway and Strange is left alone in his final moments, having lost his beloved once again and ashamed of all the pain and suffering he has caused.
  • Survivor Vision. While he did lure survivors to him in order to feed them to a zombified Wanda under the false pretenses of a cure, one cannot help but feel bad for the poor guy given that he lost the love of his life and doesn't have it in him to put her out of her misery. This also draws parallels to WandaVision as it shows what would happen if it was Wanda who died instead of him, showing that they are not so different in how they'd handle their grief.
• Just Here for Godzilla:
  • Many Black Panther fans tuned into this series to watch Chadwick Boseman's final portrayal of T'Challa before his untimely passing in August 2020. The prospect of him becoming Star-Lord also thoroughly excited many fans.
  • Episode 5 being the Marvel Zombies inspired timeline had many fans on board.
• Les Yay: Black Widow and Captain Carter have a rather charged dynamic in the Season 1 finale, complete with visibly flirty looks and an intimate hug, as well as frequent Call Backs to interactions between Steve and Natasha or Bucky in Captain America: The Winter Soldier, the latter of which was explicitly canon in the comics continuity and the former of which was famously rife with intentional Unresolved Sexual Tension. It doesn't help that Word of God outright describes Natasha as being Peggy's "Bucky" and BFF, and thus The Not-Love Interest to her.
• Love to Hate: Infinity Ultron manages to be the most dangerous and evil MCU villain thus far by destroying his own universe and attempting to do the same to the entire multiverse, yet thanks to Ross Marquand's performance and how menacing and threatening he truly is, he's seen as one of the best parts of the series by many.
• Magnificent Bastard:
  • Uatu the Watcher is a charming, witty cosmic being in charge of surveying the multiverse. Uatu is a ruthless manipulator who punishes Strange Supreme for his misdeeds by leaving him alone at the end of his universe. Uatu later recruits the Guardians of the Multiverse to stop the omncidal aims of Infinity Ultron. Using the Guardians to lure Ultron back into his own world, Uatu arranges events for Zola to destroy him. Uatu also smartly foresees in advance that Prince Killmonger would try to steal Ultron's Infinity Stones and planned to have Killmonger and Zola clash for them, perpetually trapping them in crystal. Uatu also brings the Black Widow of Ultron's timeline and uses her to stop King Loki. Uatu later acts as an advisor for Captain Carter and intentionally leaves out what Strange Supreme has planned for her to allow Strange to revive his world at the cost of his life.
  • "What If... The World Lost its Mightiest Heroes?": "King" Loki shows himself to be just as cunning and competent a god as in the Sacred Timeline. Arriving on Earth after Thor's death, Loki decimates the S.H.I.E.L.D. agents sent against him before parlaying with Nick Fury to discuss finding Thor's killer. Disguising himself as Fury and luring out the murderer, Hank Pym, Loki surprises and brutalizes Pym in a duel, taking him down and leaving him to be arrested. Without ever losing his cheery disposition, Loki then summons his armies of Asgard and conquers all of Earth with ease, taking advantage of the weakened state Pym left it in, and is ultimately only beaten by the interference of the Watcher much later, after Loki has nearly taken down all of S.H.I.E.L.D. as well as Earth's last defenders.
  • "What If... Killmonger Rescued Tony Stark?" & "What If... The Watcher Broke His Oath?": Erik "Prince Killmonger" Stevens here opts to use subtle and pragmatic means to achieve his goals. He saves the life of Tony Stark to denounce Obadiah Stane and gives himself access to Stark Industries robotics. Refining drones for his own purposes, Erik murders both Rhodes and Prince T'Challa of Wakanda, framing it as an assassination to enhance tension between the nations. Killing Tony Stark in a "Wakandan Assassination," he then kills Ulysses Klaue to return to Wakanda and become the Black Panther, preparing for war after achieving all he wanted. Later helping the Guardians of the Multiverse against the mad AI Ultron, Erik tries to seize the Infinity Stones at the end to remake the world how he desires it, even offering the Guardians a chance to join him on his crusade.
  • "What If... Nebula Joined the Nova Corps?": Nebula, a child of Thanos, keeps her mainline counterpart's efficiency while lacking the tragic machinations of her mental state. Joining the Nova Corps, Nebula aims to keep to the side of peace, a job she repeatedly holds to even when Xandar has been turned to a Wretched Hive. Investigating a plot of the possible threat of an invasion, Nebula uses both ingenuity and combat efficiency to advance, with her eventually breaking the criminal Yon-Rogg free and releasing the other prisoners to initiate a riot to allow them to escape. Despite being betrayed by Nova Prime and Yon-Rogg and almost killed, it's revealed their betrayal would've been for naught as Nebula had rigged the key that would've allowed Ronan to invade to instead backfire and destroy his ship.
  • "What If... Happy Hogan Saved Christmas?": The Justin Hammer who faces off against The Freak is far more intelligent and charming than his Sacred Timeline counterpart. Hammer infiltrates and disables the security of Stark Industries and turns the Iron Legion into his own personal army. Hammer intends to steal Tony's Hulk formula and use it to become a superhero to revive his reputation and company. Hammer runs circles around the heroes and foils Maria Hill's attempts to apprehend him by sending in his robots to intercept her. Hammer also lures Happy Hogan/The Freak into a trap, planning to kill him and harvest his body which contains the serum. When foiled, Hammer reveals that he had kept the Hulkbuster Armor as a precaution and uses it to nearly defeat the Freak. Hammer stays a funny, charming villain throughout the episode and even takes his defeat with mere bemusement.
• Memetic Badass:
  • Though he's also been subject to Memetic Loser as shown below, fans have joked about the improbable danger of Hank Pym due to how frightening the outcome of his actions tends to be. In the third episode, he rips through the Avengers with frightening competence, and in the fifth, he dooms Earth itself twice over — first by accidentally getting infected with the zombie virus by Janet van Dyne, and next by ambushing Captain America. Jokes abound about how he's the real villain of the MCU, with some even joking that he could kill anyone if he so pleased, including Uatu.
  • Frigga gets this reputation with the seventh episode, as her very name and presence is enough to make Thor and his intergalactic partygoers (which includes Surtur of all people) stop partying and clean up their act in record time. Many joked that Frigga was killed off in Thor: The Dark World because otherwise she would have easily trounce Hela, Surtur, and even Thanos into submission.
  • Strange Supreme becomes this with the Season 1 finale, considering that he pretty much carries the entire team that Uatu summoned to take down Infinity Ultron by providing them with magic barriers that make them invulnerable to Ultron's reality-shattering attacks, and he's the one who gives Ultron the hardest time during the fight using the combination of centuries of mystic arts and the Time Stone, to the point that Ultron singled him out to defeat later in the battle. Needless to say, fans have a very good reason to believe that he's one of the strongest beings in the entire multiverse.
• Memetic Loser:
  • The Prime Universe Star-Lord once again got hit with this. T'Challa's tenure as Star-Lord here sees him managing to avert a number of tragic events in the Cosmic-side of Marvel, convincing Thanos to give up on being the Mad Titan, helping to redeem Nebula earlier, preventing the deaths of Drax's family, and turning the Ravagers into a force for good. The fact that this Star-Lord becomes an in-universe Memetic Badass made the Peter Quill Star-Lord come off even more like a Loser Protagonist. To add insult to injury, the Peter Quill in this setting is a janitor at a Dairy Queen because he never got abducted by the Ravagers. But considering how Ego appears in the end, the universe would probably be better if he was dead. At least he gets to team up with T'Challa Star Lord after all is said and done (if Episode 9 is any indication).
  • Cull Obsidian of the Black Order has begun to gain this reputation, as viewers have begun to point out how he always horrifically dies every time he appears.
  • Hank Pym has started to fall into this category as well, due to being responsible for two of the darkest alternate timelines in this series. He directly causes the problem in the third episode by killing all the Avengers before they can assemble, thus allowing Loki to conquer Earth within a single day, whereas in the fifth episode he ends up getting zombified by his own wife in the Quantum Realm, and brings the virus to the real world, dooming everyone on Earth. However, in Season 2, Episode 2, he helps save the day by bonding with Peter over his mom's death.
  • Tony Stark appears in five episodes and is killed off in all but one of them.^note He's also presumably erased from existence like everyone else in Strange Supreme's universe. And in the one episode he didn't die, he was quickly Demoted to Extra. His best showing is in the episode where Killmonger saves him from the Ten Rings attack only for his new "friend" to kill him shortly afterwards anyway. Viewers couldn't help but notice how bad Stark's luck is in the multiverse, with several joking that Tony's death was an absolute point in time. Head writer A.C. Bradley acknowledged the pattern and referred to him as "the Kenny of "What If…?" Season 2 averts this, however.
  • Sharon Carter in Episode 5 is turned into a zombie offscreen, is casually tossed aside by Bucky, and gets a brutal death that is treated as comedy. Wasp even makes a quip about how she is covered in Sharon and Okoye responds with saying Peter has hand sanitizer. Some fans joke this lack of respect is the reason the Sacred Timeline version of Sharon becomes a villain in The Falcon and the Winter Soldier.
  • Thanos of all people is starting to get saddled with this as well, to an even greater degree than Tony Stark. His variant in Episode 2 isn't as strong as his Sacred Timeline counterpart, while the variants in Episodes 5 and 8, despite having five Infinity Stones in their possession, are unceremoniously killed by the Quantum virus and Ultron, respectively, the latter one-shotting him with insulting ease. His appearances in Season 2 continue this trend, having him be subjected to The Worf Effect being betrayed and killed by Ronan (who didn't even have the Power Stone) at the beginning of episode 1 and betrayed and killed again by Gamora with Tony Stark's help at the end of Episode 4.
• Memetic Mutation: Shortly after the series premiered, fans began using the title to ask very mundane and/or silly questions, such as "What if I were to purchase fast food and disguise it as my home cooking?"
  • People have also been taking to social media with what-if scenarios for various other franchises they're fans of, like Star Wars, and a few of them resort to Take Thats.
  • Some people have jokingly compared Nebula in Episode 2 to Smurfette thanks to her sporting blonde hair and being a more vibrant shade of blue.
  • "I observe everything that transpires here, but I do not, can not, will not interfere. For I am… the Watcher." ^explanation Said at the end of the first episode by Uatu. Often used to mock or invoke Bystander Syndrome
  • “I have seen everything that has ever happened, ever will happen, ever could happen. And yet, what the hell is this?!” ^Explanation Uatu’s incredulous reaction to Ultron Infinity and everything that transpired has been seen as the perfect reaction image. It happened again in the second season, when Wanda kidnap Captain Carter.
  • "What If?", the [unnamed franchise] series.^Explanation Upon the show's success, fans have been joking and suggesting that different shows and famous franchises to make similar anthology series with branching scenarios
  • "Cape fight!"^Explanation Episode 4 has the capes of both Doctors fighting against one another with fans invested more in them getting a brawl then the main fight itself.
  • It's The Amazing Bulk!^Explanation As the Freak is not that well known of a form for poor Happy Hogan, many fans compared Happy's Hulk form to the infamous low-budget Hulk-wanna-be affectionately, claiming Disney and Marvel made him canon.
• Memetic Psychopath: Hank Pym has been jokingly given this characterization, after he killed the Avengers in the third episode and accidentally unleashed the Zombie Apocalypse in the fifth.
• Moral Event Horizon:
  • In Episode 3, Hank Pym, driven mad by the death of his daughter during a S.H.I.E.L.D. mission, crosses the line when he decides to take his anger out on several unrelated superheroes and willingly screws over the entirety of Earth just to get revenge on S.H.I.E.L.D. and Fury for putting Hope In Harm's Way. He justifies the assassination of all of the Avengers by saying Fury would have led them to their own deaths and made them fight the battles Fury was too much of a Dirty Coward to fight himself.
  • In Episode 5, Zombie Survivor Vision crossed this when he sacrificed many innocent people to feed the zombified Wanda Maximoff. Black Panther was his latest victim, and it seems he removes each of their limbs before killing them. Vision himself thinks he crossed the line, and commits suicide.
  • In Episode 8, Infinity Ultron crosses it when he destroys all life on Earth except for Clint and Natasha. They decide to receive help from HYDRA mad scientist Arnim Zola to combat him, viewing him as far less evil and dangerous than Ultron. Ultron also decides to take his omnicide spree across the entire multiverse when he discovers its existence which leads to Uatu breaking his non interference vow to stop this monster.
• More Popular Replacement: Although the Sacred Timeline version of Ultron had his fans thanks to James Spader's charismatic performance, he was also quite a polarizing character due to his design being different from his comic-book counterpart, failing to be as big of a threat, and his large amount of quips making it hard to take him seriously at times. In contrast, Infinity Ultron has a design more similar to his comic-book counterpart, quips very little, and showcases how deadly he is by attempting to destroy the entire multiverse after previously destroying his own universe. Some people that aren't fans of Sacred Timeline Ultron, and even some that are, greatly prefer Infinity Ultron as a result.
• Questionable Casting: The announcement that some characters in the series will be voiced by different actors has elicited this reaction from some people. While a few of the recastings are justified (particularly with Iron Man, Black Widow and Captain America, due to their actors retiring from the MCU at large), some of them have sparked confusion with the likes of Captain Marvel and Spider-Man, whose live-action actors are still set to reprise their roles in other MCU titles. Although certain fans are understanding and are guessing that the actors are unavailable (in Tom Holland's case, the complicated shared custody of Spider-Man with Sony may have been a factor) or have other important projects to focus on, the important project even possibly being the MCU movies that are coming up.
  • One strange example of this is Dave Bautista not returning to the role of Drax in this series, with Bautista himself stating on Twitter that he never was asked to join the series for whatever reason. This confused many fans, including James Gunn himself. The answer could easily be the budget because this show has most of the MCU stars reprise their roles. Though it has since been revealed that Marvel did try to reach out to Bautista, but poor communication led to Drax's recasting.
  • Mick Wingert sounds like he's trying to do a decent impression of Robert Downey Jr. But his voice simply isn't low-pitched enough, and with how iconic and memorable Downey's performance was, the attempt comes across as doubly jarring.
  • While most of the recasted characters for this show have been accepted by fans, Ross Marquand as Ultron has proven to be a little more contentious. While Marquand is normally a talented impressionist who was able to match Hugo Weaving's voice for Red Skull perfectly, his voice for Ultron bears little resemblance to James Spader's take on the character from Age of Ultron. Which was actually intentional, according to Marquand himself, who explained that the director asked him to not do a straight impression, but rather a combination of Ultron and Vision's voices.
  • On the flipside, the MCU actors from live-action reprising their roles gained a more divisive response. While Benedict Cumberbatch's performance was well-received, the voice acting by the MCU actors didn't impress as a whole with Sebastian Stan's performance in the first episode being singled out for its blandness. It didn't help that only a few MCU actors like Cumberbatch, Tom Hiddleston and Samuel L. Jackson had experience and training as voice actors.
• Rooting for the Empire:
  • No matter how awful his actions become, it's difficult not to (at least initially) be pulling for Strange Supreme to succeed on some level, since he's so incredibly pitiable and his goal is to save Christine, who he's shown to love with all his heart. Even the Ancient One explicitly dismisses the idea that he's outright evil and calls him "misguided." That said, this is clearly deliberate, and the episode takes great pains to show why, though Strange Supreme deserves our sympathy, his arrogance and disregard for everything but his goal are a bad thing, since he wins… and promptly destroys his reality in the process.
  • Considering how awesome Killmonger's planning and execution are in Episode 6's universe, it's very easy to be pulling for him despite him still being the villain of the films. While there's hope for the heroes thanks to Shuri and Pepper, Killmonger ultimately does win, even becoming the Black Panther, though it earns him a thorough rebuking from T'Challa on the Ancestral Planes.
• Salvaged Story:
  • After two cameos and a Freeze-Frame Bonus, Howard the Duck gets to be part of the main plot of one episode when he helps T'Challa to find the Embers of Genesis he's looking for in The Collector's archive. He also gets a comic subplot in another episode with a Vegas Elvis-impersonator wedding to Darcy Lewis. Season 2 gives him a bigger role by having him team up with Nebula to take down the corrupt Nova Corps.
  • For those that still weren't quite happy with Yellowjacket's portrayal in Ant-Man, least of all in the original source material, in Episode 3 Hank not only has a very valid reason to don the suit this time around, but he also uses it to single-handedly kill all of the Avengers barring Steve as an act of revenge against S.H.I.E.L.D.. The Yellowjacket suit also gets a redesign to better resemble the original comic costume.
  • One common criticism of the MCU's version of Spider-Man is that the preventable death of Uncle Ben, a defining factor in Spider-Man's origin story, has been largely glossed over, if not outright ignored, presumably to avoid retreading areas of the prior films that featured Ben's death. Come Episode 5, Spider-Man explicitly mentions Uncle Ben as one of the many losses in his life, and indicates that his happy-go-lucky personality is a means to avoid wallowing in despair (which would presumably include the guilt of not preventing Uncle Ben's death).
  • Many comic readers who were big fans of Ultron were incredibly disappointed that the character suffered a massive case of Adaptational Wimp in the MCU, was quickly defeated by the Avengers at the end of the movie he debuted in, and had a more human-like face compared to the source material. This series gives us an Ultron who ascends beyond his comic book levels of power by successfully transferring his mind to the body that would've become the Vision and claiming all six Infinity Stones, thus not only making him a greater threat to the Avengers, but to the entire Multiverse at large. His robotic bodies are also shown with his classic Jack O'Lantern-like visage that fans greatly preferred compared to his live-action appearance. His central episode is also a more straight adaptation of Age of Ultron unlike the movie.
  • Similar to the above, many fans of Arnim Zola didn't like how the character was seemingly Killed Off for Real in the middle of Captain America: The Winter Soldier, especially due to him being a powerful recurring antagonist in the comics. What If…? S1E8 "What If… Ultron Won?" reveals that Arnim created several copies of his consciousness for HYDRA to use, one of which was stored in the KGB archives. Not only does this allow Zola to reappear in a Truer to the Text format in the final two episodes of Season 1, but it also opens up an opportunity for him to potentially return in the MCU's Sacred Timeline down the road.
  • One for the show itself: "What If...Captain Carter Were the First Avenger" received criticism for barely deviating from the plot beats of Captain America: The First Avenger, which seemingly stunted the changes to the universe at large. Season 2 gives us a sequel to this episode in which it's shown things are very different in Peggy's universe, and showcases a more original story that has her and Natasha fighting the Red Room to save a brainwashed Steve Rogers.
• Shocking Moments: Now has its own page here.
• Spoiled by the Format: The opening credits typically list all major actors from the films who appear in the episode, even if their character's appearance is clearly supposed to be a surprise within the episode.
• Unexpected Character:
  • Nobody expected to see Captain Flynn from Agent Carter One-Shot again, him both being a Canon Foreigner and pushed out of association with Peggy by not being included in the Agent Carter TV series.
  • Thanos being one of the Ravagers in Episode 2's timeline certainly caught a few people by surprise. There's also Howard the Duck who helps T'Challa for a bit before stopping for a drink.
  • After having not been seen since The Incredible Hulk (2008), Betty Ross finally makes her return to the MCU in Episode 3.
  • Of all the characters that could have been killing the Avengers in Episode 3, almost nobody would have expected it to be an evil Hank Pym who went insane and became vengeful after the death of his daughter.
  • Of all the surviving heroes that appear in What If…Zombies?!, very few people expected Kurt Goreshter from the Ant-Man films to be amongst them, given he's primarily a Plucky Comic Relief character who isn't involved much in action aspects of those films, much less anything to do with a Zombie Apocalypse.
  • Many people were surprised to see none other than Yon-Rogg appear in What If...Nebula Joined The Nova Corps?, given he hasn't appeared in any other MCU works since Captain Marvel.
• Watched It for the Representation: Season 2, Episode 6 had many fans tuning in for having a Native American woman be the focus and having citizens from Kanien'kehá:ka voicing additional characters.
• What Do You Mean, It's for Kids?: While an animated show set in the MCU might seem family-friendly enough, most of the alternate universes are darker and more gruesome than the MCU's live-action entries. The zombies episode, in particular, features many beloved characters dying horribly, including two bisections. That said, a few episodes from Season 2 did end up with a TV-PG rating.

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